(that you’ve never even asked)
2025-05-12
How I got to what I do today
What I do on a daily basis
Hands-on R project
Closing thoughts
Took AP Calc but AP Stats not offered in my HS
Double major in Mathematics / Political Science in college
Took two courses in Mathematical Statistics my senior year
Summer research project in Biostatistics after graduation
Application of statistical science to questions related to biology and public health, e.g.
Studied Biostatistics at UM
Lots of course work in MS program (~12 Biostatistics or Statistics courses / ~8 courses in epidemiology, genetics, and public health)
Additional year of courses for PhD, then research and writing a dissertation
Professor at UM
My days / evenings consist of mix of:
teaching classes
working and researching with graduate students
doing research
writing R code
J Am Med Assoc. 2019;322(6):557-568.
Patients with confirmed SARS-CoV2 infection, ages 16 years or older, started ECMO between Jan 16, 2020 and May 1, 2020
1035 patients from 213 hospitals across 36 countries
Estimated 37% in-hospital mortality 90 days post-ECMO
The Lancet. 2020;396:1071-1078
Cancer drugs often harm the patient as well as the disease
When new drugs are developed or new combinations are proposed, the right amount to give the patient is not known: too little may not be efficacious against the cancer and too much may be toxic for the patient.
First-in-human trials will gradually increase the dose level of drug.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2009 May 20; 101(10): 708–720.
I sometimes get to write theorems:
Biostatistics (2013); 14(2): 259–272
“While ChatGPT can write credible scientific essays, the data it generates is a mix of true and completely fabricated ones.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9939079/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.01268
Statisticians are only p-value machines and sample size calculators
Statisticians can’t help with study design or data collection
Statisticians don’t care about the science
More data is always better
Respond to google form: https://tinyurl.com/salineapstats
Go to posit.cloud
Create a free account
https://posit.cloud/content/4056824
Go to college:
If you want to stop with a bachelors, consider majoring in statistics or data science
If you are thinking about graduate school, consider majoring in mathematics
Hone written and oral communication skills
Summer programs in Biostatistics
Lots of free resources for learning to code:
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-science-for-health-research
https://www.coursera.org/learn/r-programming
https://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-gapminder/